Pages

Scattered Dreams

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 33; the thirty-third edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The theme for the month is 'Celebrations'

A gas-balloon, unknown of its own
future, was conceitedly floating in the sky, as if on its maiden voyage of
galaxies it was destined to kiss stars, but a trivial gust of wind shook its
existence.

Sitting on the raised platform that ran
around a banyan tree, Raghu was watching the balloon with an unadulterated
smile and undying sparkle in his eyes. He was living a similar life, many
dreams were getting accumulated over many seasons beneath the tiny petals that
covered his eyes, but his destiny was throwing challenges that tested his
life’s fragility every moment. The biggest challenge was to satisfy the
perpetually obstinate demand of hunger.

The Picture of eye sourced from Internet

Two days before taking her last breath
of immortality; his mother had a presage of an anonymous fear. Her mother
was tagged immortal. She had survived the wrath of nature, which stuck in the
form of lightning that charred the tree under which she was trying to save the
cow-dung-cakes from getting wet; she escaped unhurt barring a few minor burns.
She had survived a cobra-bite, a rarity in the village. But, her immortality
was grotesquely tattered by a human. On the day when everybody was celebrating Holi,
she was raped by the son of village Sarpanch in front of her own husband, who
was immobilised with his hands and legs tied down to the peg used to tie the
cows. After recovering, she chose the bottle of pesticide that was
strategically placed on a stool that lay in front of her husband, instead of
untying him. Continuous shouting, which could not rupture the veil of silence
worn by other villagers, had already choked his throat. He silently watched his
wife shedding her immortality breath by breath.

After the death of the his mother, his
father, a living dead, found solace only by drinking that unbearably stinking
orange coloured drink. Many a times Raghu was left at the mercy of villagers
who fed him with their leftovers. Two monsoons had already passed after his
mother’s death but his dilapidating hut was not repaired. The banyan tree
outside his hut provided a better shelter than the virtually nonexistent roof
of his hut during monsoon. Yet, the sparkle in his eyes had not dimmed.
He had dreams that sounded very unrealistic even to his mother, but his
determination was unruffled. He wanted to fly in the sky and race with the
plane that appeared around 10pm every night; he rarely missed the opportunity
to wave at the unknown and ignorant travellers. He wanted to drive
his mother to the fields where she worked, in the same long car that the rich
man used while coming to his farmhouse situated at one corner of the village.
Unaware of its significance, he wanted to own and gift that round structure,
the picture of which was discarded by a mob carrying tricolour flags and
shouting some slogans, to his uncles so that they stop harassing his parents
for money.

Inspired by the bedtime story narrated
by his mother a night before, Raghu woke up in the morning with a dream; he
wanted to conquer the world. This was only a few days before his mother died.
‘Learn to contain the agility of your mind first. You have only seen nine
monsoons, too young to carry the burden of the entire world but too old to
contain your own emotions. The world is very ruthless,’ his mother had said.
His tender brain could not decipher the philosophical undertone of her words.

On that fateful afternoon, Raghu was
playing with his only toy, a discarded bicycle tyre. Rolling the tyre on the
road, with a small but curved stick that helped him to give the thrust and the direction to the tyre, and running alongside it, as if he was measuring the
world he wants to conquer with his strides, gave him immense contentment, which
he rightfully deserved. Raghu and his tyre appeared unstoppable on the the
newly laid tar road, which saw the departure of the potholes that threatened
the tyre to complete even a single rotation. The tyre bumped into a pebble on
the road and changed its direction. Raghu ran faster and could control the tyre
from toppling over but soon he was traumatised by a loud screeching of break.

‘You fu***** As*****, you could have
spoiled our celebration.’ A voice screamed. Almost frozen on the road, Raghu
was staring at a large vehicle with missing roof and three young men sitting
inside with their eyes emitting exasperation. ‘F*** off the road,’ screamed the
man sitting at the wheel by loosely swivelling his hand in the air.

With steps smaller than his usual
stride, Raghu moved away from road, but he was continuously staring at the men,
not with fear, not with hatred, but with expectation, an unknown expectation.
The word celebration was whirling inside his brain. It was not a word alien to
him, but celebration for him only meant those two small earthen Diya lighting
the door of his hut during Deepawali,
but even that celebration lasted not more than ten minutes until the scarcely
filled sesame oil burnt, along with burning the spirit of celebration with
itself. After his mother’s death, the words celebration had abandoned Raghu,
perhaps forever.

The same evening, Raghu left his hut in
search of his father. It wasn’t a search per
se since Raghu knew precisely where to find him, the
same liquor shop at the corner of the village. He never liked this activity
because of the putridity of the place and in the mind of people frequenting
there, his father being one of them. However, it was different that evening,
Raghu was filled with joy, as if the mention of the word Celebration has
rejuvenated his being. He was walking straight, he was walking with reverse
foot, he was running, he was dancing, he made many futile attempts to catch a
butterfly, but when the butterfly flown outside his reach, he laughed at it by
raising his hand and twisting his wrist as if he himself had forgiven the
butterfly.

Very rarely that Raghu missed any
distinctive sound that blessed the village on rare occasions, but that evening,
a music, which was extremely foreign to his ears got registered inside his
brain only after he saw the same large vehicle parked outside that farmhouse
owned by the rich man. The intensity of music playing inside the house grew as
Raghu covered the distances with careful steps. The unknown expectation that
had sent the sparkle in his eyes a few hours ago was reignited. The expectation
was to see, or if possible become a part of, the celebration of rich men and
live their life even for a fraction of a second.

He forgot the purpose for which he was
on the road. He forgot the threat of unnoticeable creatures that may be
crawling inside the bushes when he took the deviation from the road to reach to
the tree, a branch of which crossed the concrete boundary wall of the farmhouse
and tilted downwards so that one could comfortably descend inside the lawn. He
had used this tree many a times in the past to venture inside the farmhouse to
pilferage the otherwise wasted mangoes. The corpulent old security guard posed
negligible threat.

The deafening music raised his
adrenalin level while he was watching inside through the half-open window. The
smell of liquor was wafting in the air, but even that could not distract him.
He was surprised to see that the clean and wrinkle-free clothing, he was
envious about the rich people, was missing from the body of the three men. They
were dancing like a maniac with only short pants covering their sanity. All the
three of them were holding a glass in their hands and two of them had tucked
cigarettes between their lips.

The music reached an abrupt halt and
the three men collapsed on the couch. This was perhaps the first time Raghu
blinked but remain attached to the place.

‘Good that your father allowed us to
use this place.’ A man with the stubble on his face said to the fattest among
them, after recovering his breaths.

‘He was bound to, has anybody in his
family ever seen the gate of engineering college. His son will join one very
soon.’ Another man with curly hair exclaimed by raising his glass for the toast
and other two followed.

‘Don’t you think something is missing?’
The fat man spoke after sometime with a husky voice, after sucking half of his
cigarette.

‘All because of this as*****, what was
the need to bump with his partner in a common place, because of that all the
girls backed out.’ The man with curly hair said pointing towards the man with
stubble. An intense argument ensued for some time. Raghu was slowly losing
interest, for the first time he distracted his eyes and looked towards to gate
to check for the guard. He was convinced that he was in a safe position. He
again looked towards the men but there were only two of them still arguing and
the third, the fat one was missing. Raghu cursed both of them for arguing, and
silently pleaded that the music should start. Very contrary to his thoughts, a
hand, the heavier one present in that moment landed on Raghu’s shoulder. For a
moment, as if he was pegged on the place, he didn’t move, perhaps his pulse
were silent too.

Raghu was pulled inside by the fat man.
Without much of resistance, he followed him.

‘He was watching us from that window; I
am not sure for how long.’ The fat man said.

‘What were you watching dude?’ The man
with the curly hair asked. Raghu remained silent. The man repeated his
question, this time with slightly higher decibel.

‘Celebration.’ The word escaped Raghu’s
mouth.

‘Celebration?’ The man with stubble
asked with surprise.

‘Hey, this is the same bastard who
almost killed himself today in front of our car.’ The fat man said. There was a
moment of silence.

Unaffected by all this Raghu was
watching at the table where the food items were kept. He could not suppress the
desire speaking from his eyes and leaking through the sides of his mouth. This
perhaps melted everybody in the room.

‘You want to eat something?’ The fat
man asked, sympathy lurking on his face. Raghu simply nodded. No further words
were exchanged between them. After almost fifteen minutes of assault on the
food items, Raghu turned his head and looked towards the other members in the
room. A cunning smile was back on their faces clearly suggesting that something
was cooking inside their brain, but Raghu was too innocent to decipher.

‘Come, we will play something.’ The man
with curly hair said. ‘You can eat after that as well.’ Raghu tuned and tilted
his head in acceptance.

‘You seem very dirty. Take this soap
and have a bath, and don’t wear these dirty clothes again, come out in the
towel. We will buy new clothes for you from that village shop.’ The fat man
said handing the soap to him. Raghu immediately took the soap near his nose and
smelled. As if the perfume trickled every sense of his body, he exhaled the
satisfaction.

By the time Raghu came back from the
bathroom, the other three inmates in the room were under the absolute grip of
Alcohol.

‘Come baby, come, come.’ The alcohol
inside the fat man said. ‘Let me see how you smell.’ He pulled Raghu towards
him and started sniffing, up and down, his entire body. In the next moment,
the entire towel was lying on the floor. Raghu was raped animalistically, first
by the fat man and then by the man having the curly hair. Raghu tried to
protest but he failed. He shouted, he cried but all his efforts went futile.

Before the man with the stubble
approached him, a voice of a man singing on the road reached his ears. It was
his father. He ran towards the window and holding the grill he wanted to shout,
but he could not, continuous shouting and crying had gnawed his voice. The man
with stubble started pulling him, but Raghu’s grip on the grill didn’t loosen.
High on Alcohol, the man gave up trying after a few attempts. With his legs
barely holding the ground, he disappeared in one of the rooms and came back
holding a gun. Raghu was terrified even more, he looked towards the other two
people, but they had already passed into a deep slumber.

The unbearable pain in the lower part
of his body was now replaced by the horror of the gun swiveling on his head.
Raghu’s grip on the grill was slowly loosening, but the alcohol barked from the
mouth of the gun, a bullet pierced through Raghu’s eye, drilled his brain,
and came out making a large hole on the back of his head.

Raghu’s body collapsed on the ground.
Stream of blood started flowing from his eyes carrying the unfulfilled and
wrongly placed dreams. Looking at the scattered dreams all over, his soul,
perhaps, could have understood the exact meaning of words spoken by his mother.

Early morning his body lay a few feet
below the ground under the same branch of the tree, which brought him to this
place.

The celebration continued. The three
men came back three months later in the same way albeit accompanied by three
girls this time.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. Introduced By: BLOGGER NAME, Participation Count: 03